Kekla Magoon: Learning to Write

I teach at Vermont College of Fine Arts and that’s actually also where I got my Master’s degree and so I really rely on that community for support, for intellectual engagement, for craft, you know, learning and growth. And it’s a really important part of my writing life to have people not just from VCFA but from across the children’s literature community as my friends.

When I meet with young writers I often am more focused on what they’re doing on the page, I talk to them about the importance of sticking with your writing, the importance of continuing and definitely the importance of believing in your own voice regardless of what other people might have to say about your work and that, you know, to try to recognize the difference between somebody who just wants to cut you down or wants to change what you’re trying to say versus somebody who is being critical of your work to try to help you improve, to try to help you grow, to try to help those very valuable things that you have that you want to express to the world to help you find ways to make that clearer to a reader.